Free Republic

WHY DO WE HAVE AN ADULT IMMUNIZATION SCHEDULE? Did you know that the CDC has an adult vaccination schedule?1 It’s been around for 22 years, growing and changing.2 Promotion of routine adult immunization started around 1990 but wasn’t formalized into a schedule until 2002. The federal government has embraced vaccination as “a lifespan approach, covering vaccination from before birth into old age,”3 basically, from womb to tomb. This is laid out in its National Vaccination Plans, which were mandated by U.S. Congress in 1987. The Adult Immunization Schedule has been a bit of a sleeper, but in recent years, when...

China is waiting for the Russian Federation to collapse so it can seize a slice of land taken from it by Russia 200 years ago, it has been claimed.Beijing has been a crucial supporter of Vladimir Putin since he invaded Ukraine and was essentially cut off from the Western world due to sanctions.But Canadian journalist and author Diane Francis believes that China is also preparing to take back a slice of land in the far east of Russia.Speaking to Times Radio, she explained how the war in Ukraine may have just Beijing-Moscow relations.She said: "China was put in a terrible...

On a Caribbean island just 220 miles from the shore of the U.S. Virgin Islands, a black-clad Chinese security guard swept an arm at more than a thousand acres of woodland and a glittering, aqua-green marine reserve beyond."It's like a small country," he said in Chinese.

Taiwan has officially confirmed the presence of US troops stationed on its islands in the Taiwan Strait permanently, a development that could further escalate mounting tensions with China.The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed in 2023 facilitated the deployment of these troops to conduct training programs for Taiwanese frontline forces.The move comes as China continues to assert its disputed claim over Taiwan, viewing it as a renegade province despite never having ruled it. The heightened military activities by China in and around the Taiwan Strait have prompted Taiwan to bolster its defense capabilities.

judge this month dropped gun charges against an illegal migrant in Illinois, sparking further debate about the rights associated with the Second Amendment.U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Coleman of the Northern District of Illinois referenced lower court rulings in dismissing firearm possession charges against Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, who was illegally or unlawfully in the United States when he possessed a handgun in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago on June 1, 2020."The Court finds that Carbajal-Flores' criminal record, containing no improper use of a weapon, as well as the non-violent circumstances of his arrest do not support a finding that he...

The Department of Veterans Affairs office dedicated to rooting out racism and harassment is itself a “hostile, toxic work environment with a permissive culture of rampant gossiping and innuendo,” where multiple layers of top officials participated in and covered up sexual harassment, an internal agency review concluded.At one point, a senior manager fired a mid-level manager because both men wanted to sexually harass the same employee. When a complaint was filed, a political appointee sat on it, apparently partly for racial reasons.

The Attorney General of Indiana has launched an interesting initiative to prevent the progressive indoctrination of children in public schools.In an interview with The Daily Signal, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced the launch of an online portal in which parents can monitor content of potential concern. “This is a tool to empower parents in their dealings with their own school system so they can better raise their kids, which is their job and not the schools,” Rokita told the Signal. Rokita said that he felt the need to take action after parents sent him lesson plans showing how their...

....Chinese officials are seizing on opportunities to forge ties with mayors and other local American leaders, the kinds of connections that give Beijing leverage against an increasingly hostile government in Washington.

RENO, Nev. (KOLO/Gray News) - A highway patrolman in Nevada says he feels betrayed by his department after his K-9 partner was taken away from him.Just weeks ago, Trooper Christopher Garcia was celebrating his K-9 partner’s fourth birthday.K-9 Nala was a narcotics detection canine who had been Garcia’s partner for the last two years.Garcia was her first handler.“She’s a huge daddy’s girl. I just love her,” he said. “She’s part of the family. Off duty she’s with me, she’s just a big love.”However, K-9 Nala was abruptly taken out of service recently by the Nevada Highway Patrol after a non-aggressive...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Navy is starting to enlist individuals who didn't graduate from high school or get a GED, marking the second time in about a year that the service has opened the door to lower-performing recruits as it struggles to meet enlistment goals.

A trucker convoy of “patriots” is heading to the U.S. border with Mexico next week, as the standoff between Texas and the federal government intensifies.The organizers of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the “globalists” who they claim are conspiring to keep U.S. borders open and destroy the country. “This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one convoy organizer said on a recent planning call. “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil,” said another. “Blessed are...

Something is rotten in the imperial court of Chairman Xi Jinping. While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region.The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country.The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated...

Countries need to increase their taxes on alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, saying too few states were using tax to incentivize healthier behaviors. After studying taxation rates, the WHO said the average global tax rate on such "unhealthy products" was low, and hiking taxes could result in healthier populations."WHO recommends that excise tax should apply to all sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and alcoholic beverages," the UN health agency said in a statement.Excise taxes target particular goods and services.The WHO said 2.6 million people a year die from drinking alcohol, while more than eight million die from...

The Biden administration gave $86 million to a company accused of peddling counterfeit COVID test kits manufactured in China, according to records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the funding to CorDx, a COVID test kit manufacturer, in September. The deal will finance free testing products to American households and is intended to "bolster U.S. manufacturing."But records obtained by the Free Beacon raise questions about CorDx's testing kits and its domestic manufacturing capabilities. One of the company's competitors claimed CorDx sold knockoff kits stamped with a false brand name, in violation...

Microsoft helped Chinese state-run media outlets disseminate propaganda as part of previously unreported partnership agreements, documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show. The nation’s second largest corporation signed collaboration deals with state-run Chinese media outlets including China Daily and People’s Daily, the latter of which is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese government. Summaries of the deal state Microsoft would provide China Daily with technology that lets the paper target potential readers and gave the People’s Daily access to an artificial intelligence bot specially designed to be controlled and censored by the Chinese Communist Party.The...

Editor’s Note: This article is part of “If Trump Wins,” a project considering what Donald Trump might do if reelected in 2024.After four years of Joe Biden, China’s leaders would likely be relieved to have Donald Trump back in the White House.

A new Department of Defense reports says dozens of soldiers were suspected of advocating or supporting the overthrow of the U.S. government.The Pentagon has investigated 183 instances of extremism in military ranks, according to a new report, including 78 cases of troops “advocating for, engaging in, or supporting the overthrow of the U.S. Government or seeking to alter the form of the Government by unconstitutional or other unlawful means.”The U.S. military has a well-documented extremism problem. People with extreme political ideologies, including white supremacists, have long used the military as a place to recruit and train new talent. A lot...

.....“There is nothing more disgusting than rich people who do nothing to undermine the material position of their own class vaguely calling for peace and love,” Fergie wrote on Instagram on November 2. “It gives me actual bloodlust.”“We’re frightened to go out to restaurants, or cafés in town. It’s chilling,” the man in Great Barrington added. He tells me that the police aren’t much help—“they won’t come”—when it comes to Fergie and his followers, and that he’s considering moving towns. (The police declined to comment and directed me to the DA’s office who, through a representative, emailed to say that...

Maine officials said they seized some 3,400 marijuana plants and 111 pounds of processed marijuana in June at a property in Carmel, Maine, identified as one of many unlicensed marijuana-growing operations in the state run by Chinese networks. PHOTO: PENOBSCOT COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICECARMEL, Maine—An astronomical electricity bill was the first tipoff that something unusual was going on at a former chicken farm in this town of 3,000 people off Interstate 95.A Massachusetts-registered construction company had bought the 5.5-acre property in 2021. But instead of construction equipment moving in, a new power pole sprang up. Electricity use jumped to nearly...

Twice, Burke has joined other conservative cardinals in issuing formal questions to the pontiff, known as “dubia,” asking him to clarify questions of doctrine that upset conservatives and traditionalists. In the first, they asked Francis to clarify his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, and Francis never replied. In the second, they asked whether same-sex couples could receive church blessings — and received a conditional maybe in response.